Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor and former senior deputy mayor Heera Negi (52) raised various issues concerning her ward in the municipal corporation (MC) House meetings but failed to move the official machinery to solve the water supply problem in the area

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor and former senior deputy mayor Heera Negi (52) raised various issues concerning her ward in the municipal corporation (MC) House meetings but failed to move the official machinery to solve the water supply problem in the area.

Residents of Sectors 32 and 46 that make ward 21 say besides water problem, poor sanitation, badly maintained green belts and street lights are other issues they are grappling with on everyday basis.

Negi, who was elected senior deputy mayor in 2014, however, claims that maximum development work was carried out in her ward during her tenure, be it renovation of the Sector-46 community centre and government schools in the two sectors and installation of a tubewell and a water booster in Sector 46, some of the long-pending demand of local residents.

She was vocal in the House meetings, but failed to convince the officials on various issues.

She was the BJP’s mayoral candidate last year even as party’s Chandigarh unit president Sanjay Tandon wanted party’s Asha Jaswal to pitch against the Congress’s Poonam Sharma who won. She is considered close to local member of Parliament (MP) Kirron Kher with whose support she contested for the post.

In January 2015, Negi, who is associated with various religious and social organisations, along with three BJP councillors, was issued show-cause notice by Sanjay Tandon for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities and indiscipline. The four councillors had staged a walkout, when BJP councillor Arun Sood started speaking in the House meeting during the zero hour.

Heaps of garbage lying outside Government Model Senior Secondary School in the same sector.
(Keshav Singh/HT)

Negi, who was chairperson of the municipal corporation’s apni mandi committee last year, had made some recommendations to streamline the apni mandis, but nothing was done. She also approved installation of mobile toilets and ban on the use of polybags besides regulating traffic near apni mandis.

Had share of controversy

On May 25, 2014, when Congress councillors Satish Kainth (now in BJP) and Darshan Garg locked MC chief engineer Mukesh Anand and other officers in his room for 30 minutes, BJP councillors asked the then senior deputy mayor Negi to sit the mayor’s chair to begin the House proceedings, even as the then mayor Harphool Chander Kalyan was around, forcing him to adjourn the meeting. This created a controversy.